Family Presence During Bedside Rounding of Critically Ill Patients: Introducing the African American Nurse's Perspective

Family members of patients in critical care environments can experience a wide array of negative emotions, mainly stemming from the “unknown”. Critically ill patients often have limited capacity, rendering them unable to participate in treatment choices. This makes family involvement as surrogate participants in the shared decision-making with healthcare team essential. Studies have shown that poor communication between healthcare teams and families in critical care environments contribute to high rates of depression and anxiety experienced by family members (Cody, Sullivan-Bolyai, & Reid-Ponte, 2018, p. 19). Effective communication between families of the critically ill and healthcare providers are essential in attaining the best possible family-patient centered outcomes. Family bedside rounds provide a way for the care team to inform family members and involve them in care decisions. Families value communication that provide them with a sense of partnership and involvement in their loved one’s care; however, documented nursing perceptions of family presence during critical care bedside rounding indicated most nurses did not like the idea. One study highlighted that, most registered nurses strongly disagreed with family presence during bedside rounds because it would prolong rounding and reduce information transfer between nurses (Santiago, Lazar, Jiang, & Burns, 2014). There is a paucity of literature addressing the minority perceptions towards nursing care. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, eighty-one percent of registered nurses are White and only 9.9 percent are African American; therefore, results gained from these studies were mainly derived from the majority. This research will explore the attitudes and perceptions of the African American nurse towards family presence at bedside rounds of the critically ill patient. Madeleine Leininger’s cultural caring theory will provide the guiding framework for this study. Survey data will be collected from convenience sampling of the Black Nurses Rock online community. Data obtained will be analyzed using descriptive statistics and results presented once analysis is complete.